


Dhru

by ShannaraIsles



Series: Ena'Vun: The Dawn Will Come [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Articles of Faith, Coming to a decision, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Understanding, reassurance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 14:38:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10165184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannaraIsles/pseuds/ShannaraIsles
Summary: In which Velen Lavellan learns that being proclaimed the Herald of Andraste is not such an anachronism, after all.





	

"Herald! Welcome back!"

  
The shout echoed across the approach to Haven, cutting through the sound of sword and shields clashing on the training ground. Across the snow-swept space, activity paused as men and women looked up, raising a cheer for the returning Herald of Andraste.

  
A Herald who, against all previous form, clenched her jaw as she swung down from her horse, and stalked off into the trees, radiating silent, seething fury. Her companions were left to field the hurt and confusion left in her wake. Whatever they said seemed to mollify those close enough to hear, but by then the commander had noticed the interruption to the usual proceedings.

  
As Cullen approached, the impromptu gathering scattered. Cassandra offered him a single nod in greeting, passing him to make her way toward the practise dummies. He winced at the sound of her first blow. It seemed as though the report from Leliana's agent had been sparing on the details, given the level of fury the Lady Seeker was directing toward the straw-packed target. Solas had already slipped away, but Varric Tethras, the dwarven rogue who seemed inclined to remain despite being offered his freedom, met the commander's eye.

  
"Curly." The dwarf greeted him, his tone as measured and laid-back as ever. "Enjoy the show?"

  
"Tethras." Cullen offered him a nod, letting the nickname pass without comment for once. "How did you find Val Royeaux?"

  
"About as welcoming as any nest of vipers," came the reply. "Almost charming, really."

  
"And the Herald?"

  
Varric followed Cullen's gaze in the direction the Herald had taken. "That?" He chuckled, though there was little mirth in the sound. "That was downright cuddly, compared with her attitude lately."

  
Cullen frowned, concern colouring his thoughtful expression. "She cannot afford to alienate our followers," he worried aloud. "Too many outside Haven are ready to label her a blasphemous heretic."

  
"There's the rub, commander," Varric mused in response, slinging Bianca, his unique crossbow, onto his back once more. "Can't be a heretic if you don't believe in it to begin with."

  
That pulled Cullen up short, breaking his cycle of worried thoughts with a sharp jolt. Why hadn't he considered that before? Velen Lavellan was an elf, a _Dalish_ elf. She had not been raised in the Chant of Light; the Dalish still clung to the old elvhen gods. Indeed, she was more likely to have inherited a deep resentment of the Andrastian Chantry, thanks to the Exalted March on the Dales that had all but destroyed her people and their culture centuries ago. The only reason the Dalish lived in small nomadic clans was because of the Chantry. Seen in that light, it was not difficult to understand her discomfort when declared to be the Herald of Andraste.

  
Varric watched as these thoughts played over the commander's face. "You talk to her," the dwarf suggested. "She stopped listening to us before we left Orlais."

  
"Why would she listen to me?" Cullen asked him, curiosity overriding his instinct to argue the point.

  
"She might not," Varric conceded with a comical tilt of his head. "But you're the only member of the Chantry who hasn't insulted her to her face, or offered to kill her outright. Can't hurt."

  
"I am not of the Chantry -"

  
"You're an ex-Templar; yes, I know." The dwarven storyteller sighed, rolling his eyes. "Go talk to the apostate mage, commander. Might be what you need, too." He turned away, leaving Cullen to consider this further.

  
Varric did have a point. Velen's experience of the Chantry thus far had not been the most nurturing. Even if he disregarded the childhood experiences she must have had, the followers of the Maker and Andraste had not conducted themselves with the compassion they prided themselves on. Even Cassandra, who might be close to being called a friend to the elven woman, had begun her association with Velen by demanding to know why she shouldn't kill the elf where she knelt. The clerics' denouncement of her, the Seekers' and Templars' open hostility, even Chancellor Roderick's undisguised contempt of her ... why would _anyone_ welcome association with them, much less a free elven mage who had reason enough to distrust them before the death of the Divine?

  
He hadn't realised he was walking as he mulled over these thoughts, following the small imprints of Velen's feet in the snow, until a crackle of flame flashed overhead. He ducked instinctively, his hand already moving to draw his sword, cursing his habit of not carrying a shield even as he took in what he had interrupted.

  
Small fires were merrily burning themselves out in the snow, their pattern perfectly marking the fall out from an uncontrolled release of magical energy in a barrage from the caster in their midst. Velen herself was crouched at the epicentre of those fires, green eyes wide with something might almost have been guilt as she acknowledged who had joined her. The smoking remains of a practise dummy were collapsing slowly into a deep drift on the other side of the clearing, marking the crisp snow with soot and ash.

  
"I'd wondered where that had gone," Cullen commented mildly, nodding toward the destroyed target. He straightened, sheathing his sword as he went on, "I'll have another made available to you."

  
Evidently this was not the reaction, Velen had been expecting. She glanced at what was left of the dummy, raising her hand to rub fingertips over the delicate tattoo that climbed and spread over her forehead.

  
"Cassandra said no one would miss it," she offered by way of an excuse, defending her absconding with Inquisition property with the fierce defiance he had grown used to seeing from her.

  
"Lady Cassandra can get through four or five in one hour on a bad day." Cullen chuckled, a faint smile tugging at the vertical scar on his lip as he approached her, wary of the magic he could still feel crackling in the air around her. "No one would begrudge just one to the Herald of Andraste."

  
As soon as the title left his lips, he knew he had made his first mistake. Velen stiffened noticeably, her eyes darkening with grim distaste as a scowl settled over her freckled face.

  
"Don't call me that," she snapped quietly. "I am _not_ your Herald."

  
"You may not like it, Velen, but you _are_ my Herald," he said, making a swift decision to hold his ground on this point. "You're _their_ Herald, too."

  
The scowl on her face had frozen, an odd sort of pleasure reflected in her defensive gaze as she stared at him. She had a disconcerting way of holding eye contact during even the most inconsequential conversation, but Cullen couldn't recall ever seeing that look in her eyes before. It was almost ... grateful.

  
"You called me Velen."

  
Panic flared in the back of his mind. Had that been the wrong thing to say too? Had he crossed some line he hadn't realised existed? Stumbling for words, he could feel his neck turning red, the first wave of a blush that would paint his entire face plum unless he could get control of it.

  
"I, uh ... That _is_ your name, isn't it?" he asked worriedly, one hand rising to rub at his neck as he glanced around, trying to avoid that direct gaze of hers. "Did I ... did I pronounce it wrongly? I apologise."

  
"No!" Her hands came up as though warding off his words. "Don't apologise. Please.. It's just ... no one's called me by name since I fell out of the Breach. It's always _Herald_ or _Mistress Lavellan_ , and ... neither of those belong to me."

  
Relieved that he had not made such a terrible mistake in his address of her, Cullen felt the blush subsiding before it could reach his face. "Velen is who you are," he told her. "Velen is the woman who goes out of her way to help anyone who asks her, even those who _don't_ ask her." He paused, taking in her startled expression, and tried not to smirk too widely. "I do _read_ the reports Cassandra sends back here, you know."

  
She grimaced, her freckles suddenly in sharp contrast to a deep blush as, for the first time since he'd known her, she actually looked away while she spoke. "So ... you know about ..." She gestured to her left arm.

  
"Yes, I know all about herding a druffalo home and somehow managing to fall down a waterfall into the kill zone of a rift," he assured her.

  
He'd been horrified when he'd read it, but the re-telling from Cassandra's perspective over a mug of ale the night they had returned had taken much of the horror from that story. Velen might not come out of it looking much like a hero, but she'd got the job done, even with one arm hanging loose from its shoulder socket, and one foot trapped between broken rocks beneath the water's surface.

  
"The point is, _Velen_ ," he said, laying emphasis on her name as he stepped a little closer, "that the title you despise so much has nothing to do with you."

  
Her eyes snapped back to his with sharp confusion. "Excuse me?" she demanded hotly. _"I'm_ the one who fell out of a hole in the Fade; _I'm_ the one who ended up with this-this _thing_ on my hand; and _I'm_ the one everyone expects to save the world! And all in the name of some prophet of a god I don't even believe in!"

  
Cullen sighed, shaking his head. "Will you just _listen_ to me, before declaring your intention never to listen to another word?"

  
Her mouth fell open. It was a scolding, that much was certain, but one delivered in such a gentle tone. There was no anger behind those words, and not for the first time, the commander reminded her strongly of Keeper Deshanna, whose gentle reprimands could reduce even the most hardened of hunters to repentant tears. How strange to find such a quality in a shem - a human, she corrected herself. She did these people a disservice to call them _shemlen_ , especially now she knew them. Allowing that Cullen might have a point, she closed her mouth, sinking down onto a snow-swept boulder to draw her knees up to her chest. After a moment, he sat beside her, the hardened leather of his scabbard scraping over the stone before he settled.

  
"Think about the world we live in," he offered in a quiet tone, staring out over the soot-marred snow of the clearing. "A world where magic has become a thing to be feared once again, and those who wield it are considered dangerous, without any exceptions. A world where those who are meant to protect against the dangers of magic have turned peace into a war that seems to have no meaning. Innocent people are caught up in their battles, and turn to the Chantry for guidance and protection. Yet the Chantry is not helping them. The Chantry has lost its unified voice, its Divine, all the higher clerics who might have been able to take her place in the wake of this disaster. And on top of all of this, there is a Breach in the Veil itself, opening rifts in far flung places, disgorging demons that delight in destruction and death. Nowhere is safe. Chaos is everywhere we look, and we all know that the Maker turned His face from us centuries ago."

  
He looked down at the elf by his side, surprised - as he always was - to find her gaze already on him, watching his face as he spoke even if he did not meet her eyes. Perhaps Varric had been right, he conceded reluctantly. Perhaps Velen _was_ more inclined to listen to him as a devout Andrastian, rather than any other. Of course, he had no guarantee that she would absorb the point of any of this, but he had come too far to back out now.

  
"We are taught from birth that the Maker has turned away from us," he explained gently, knowing she might not be conversant with some of the basic tenets of the Andrastian Chantry. "Not once, but twice. He was drawn back to us by Andraste, but when the Imperium burned her at the stake, he turned His face away once again. We believe Andraste is still at His side, imploring Him to look upon us once more. The Chantry teaches that if the Chant of Light is heard in the four corners of the world, the Maker will return to us. The Chantry is the one thing all human society in Thedas agrees on - even the Tevinter Imperium has a Chantry, though they regard theirs a little differently, for obvious reasons. The Chantry is our common ground, what holds us together, what keeps the peace. The Chantry gives hope and guidance, protects us in our darkest hour."

  
"But the darkest hour is here, and the Chantry has been all but destroyed," Velen murmured, her tone thoughtful. Her brows had drawn down into a pensive frown, the vallaslin on her forehead giving the impression of a tree drawing its branches inward for protection from a storm.

  
"Exactly," Cullen agreed with her. "People have heard the tale of the woman who was seen in the Fade behind you, and what facts we have are not enough to prevent them from hoping. _Hope_ is what named her Andraste; hope is what named _you_ the Herald of Andraste. Anyone could have been in your place - a human, a dwarf, even a Qunari - and they would still have been declared the Herald of Andraste. Faith is the only thing that sustains us when times grow dark and chaos reigns. We have not named you our Herald because of anything you have said or done. You came to us in our darkest hour, bearing with you the mark that allows you control over the rifts, and hearsay has become folk legend. We - the faithful - _need_ to believe that we have not been abandoned. And though you may fight it, you _are_ the focus of that belief. In our eyes, you are the chosen one, sent by Andraste to protect the world. It does not matter that you do not believe in her yourself, nor that you are not who the Chantry would have chosen. All that matters is that you are restoring some semblance of order to the world, and each time you do, your legend grows."

  
"You keep saying _we_ ," she said, tilting her head toward him with a guarded glint in her eyes. "Does that mean _you_ believe I am sent by your prophet to save everyone?"

  
Cullen's lips quirked into a rare smile, his scar pulling his lip in a lopsided flicker before the expression faded. "I believe that you are exactly what we need, when we need it," he told her honestly. "Whether it is the will of the Maker, the touch of Andraste, or even the machinations of your own gods, I am grateful for your presence. But I am also one of the faithful, and I _want_ to believe you are touched by Andraste. I don't want to face the world knowing that my god and his bride have forgotten us entirely."

  
Velen absorbed this in silence, her thoughts turning inward. What he was describing sounded only too familiar to her. Her own gods were out of reach, tricked by the Dread Wolf into leaving their people and unable to return. She could only imagine the fear and sadness that parting had caused all those centuries ago, to the people she called her ancestors. Such a parting was more recent for the humans and elves who believed in the Maker; the wound was still raw. They had not yet learned to have faith and yet steer the course of their own lives. What if, when the gods had left them, the Dalish had seen someone return from the place whence they had gone? Her people, too, would have raised that someone, no matter their race or beliefs, to the position she found herself in now. Not because they truly believed that someone was sent by the gods, but because they needed to believe the gods had not forgotten them. It would not have mattered to the Dalish who that someone was. They would have clung to the stories, the legend, that would have grown around them.

  
_Just as the humans do to me, now,_ she realised, suddenly ashamed for the way she had rejected that need, that faith. What they believed had no bearing on what _she_ believed. But if she could help them, guide them, teach them a better way than constant war and unending chaos ... surely that would do them better service than all the hope their faith instilled. That was what a Keeper did, and she _had_ been training to become a Keeper herself. Being the Herald of Andraste was no different to being the Keeper of a clan. As that thought chimed in her mind, she realised how wrong she had been to reject these people. The homeless, the hopeless - so many of them looked to her, projecting their fears and the hope that those fears would be allayed onto the image of what they needed her to be. She felt the weight of that regard more than ever in that moment, and yet ... it did not sit so wrongly on her shoulders any longer.

  
"It's too much," she murmured, turning her head to stare into the falling snow. "I can't be everything they need me to be. I'm just one woman."

  
"Andraste was just one woman," Cullen reminded her, his tone still gentle, his voice reaching out to guide her through those troubling thoughts. "And she did not stand alone. Just you do not stand alone."

  
"We are the last Elvhen. Never again shall we submit."

  
He glanced sharply at the elven woman who sat beside him, uncertain what to make of those words. She had spoken so softly, and yet there was fire in those words. They seemed to be some kind of promise, something she had learned from childhood no doubt. But did they mean that she was rejecting the Inquisition, and everyone who needed her?

  
"Your Chantry tried to destroy us," she went on quietly. "They failed. We kept our lore, our traditions. We will never be slaves again. But this Breach ... if I fail, it will grow, and demons will destroy the world. They _won't_ fail, and no one will be safe from them. No one will be left to preserve the traditions and memories, the cultures that will fall before them. I would not wish that on anyone, not even my greatest enemy. _We_ are the last line of defence against the demons. And we will _not_ submit."

  
Cullen felt a smile trying to work its way onto his face. It never would have occurred to him to look at the situation in those terms. Yet Velen had lived her whole life as an outsider, preserving knowledge that had been threatened for centuries, proud of her place among the Dalish. Of course she would see the threat in those terms, terms that made sense to her.

  
"Then I am pleased to stand at your side, Herald," he said, rising to his feet. He offered her a short bow, unsurprised when she snorted with derision at the respectful obeisance. It was going to take time for her to accept that such respect came with the title she seemed to have finally acknowledged. "Josephine and Leliana will be waiting to discuss the events in Val Royeaux."

  
Velen rolled her eyes, pushing herself up from the boulder reluctantly. It was no secret that she despised the hours spent in the war room. Talking everything to death seemed a waste of time she could be using _doing_ something, after all. She caught up her staff from the ground, setting it against her shoulder as they turned back toward Haven.

  
And this time, when the cry went up from pilgrims who desired a glimpse of their Herald, she did not scowl or grimace, nor did she turn away. She offered them a smile - the bright, warm smile her companions were slowly growing used to after weeks of grudging solemnity - and gave them that glimpse without argument. If they needed her to be the focus of their hopes, then she would _be_ their Herald of Andraste.

  
And if she found out that it really _was_ Andraste who had tossed her out of the Fade, she and the Maker would be having words.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually managed to write a second part, it's astonishing. Again, the title is gleaned from FenxShiral's Project Elvhen, and probably isn't accurate because of my interpretation. Dhru - faith, or belief.
> 
> All belongs to Bioware, naturally. Hope you enjoy!


End file.
